Stink Bugs Invading Lancaster County Again

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lancaster County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“This is like being in an Alfred Hitchcock movie, only it’s stink bugs instead of birds. When you step outside they jump on you. This is like a plague or something!”

That’s an exasperated Drema Brubaker, when the Asian invaders began swarming her family’s home in the woods near Mount Nebo in the southern end earlier this week.

“I’ve lived here since 1976 but I was so mad I was throwing a fit, saying I didn’t want to live here anymore,” she said. “I’m like a wild woman swatting them.”

Unfortunately, the Brubaker family’s new reality may play out in many other Lancaster County homes over the next several weeks.

Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/901490_Stink-bugs-invading-Lancaster-County-again.html#ixzz2glmsOhc1

Summer Of 2013 Suits Crops Just Swell

Editor’s note:  A good reason to buy local and support local growers!

A hot and rainy July has left Berks County crops looking good and tasting great.

“They’ve been beautiful,” Carolyn Preston said Friday of the 25 varieties of peaches she grows at her South Heidelberg Township orchard.  “I’ve been selling out within hours.”

Peaches are picked and sold daily at Preston Orchards, 168 Preston Road, and are never put in cold storage so they don’t lose flavor, she said.

“We’ve been getting the best of both worlds,” she said of the heat and rain.  “The apples are looking good, too.”

Read more:  http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=496174

Pottstown Community Garden Taking Root In Second Site

POTTSTOWN — Say goodbye to the crumbling eyesore, say hello to Pottstown’s second community garden.

The continuing efforts by the Mosaic Community Land Trust to transform falling-down buildings and lots into productive assets took another step forward this week with the demolition of 615 Chestnut St.; the vacant site of a former neighborhood store will soon become a place where local residents can grow food for their tables and flowers for their enjoyment.

The property was owned for several years “by a fellow down in Philadelphia who eventually gave up on owning the property because he didn’t want to have to pay to demolish it, so he donated it to the land trust,” said David Jackson, chairman of the land trust’s board of directors.

That leverage, he said, was the result of pressure from the borough codes department, which cited the property repeatedly for violations.

Read more:  http://www.pottsmerc.com/article/20130610/NEWS01/130609277/pottstown-community-garden-taking-root-in-second-site

Great Year For York County Apple Crop

Image via Wikipedia

Considering the earthquake, tornadoes, flooding, drought, excessive heat and stink bugs, York County‘s apple crop could end up having a banner year.  Many fruits and vegetables did not fare well this summer with the erratic weather.  However, the apple crop has been unaffected.  The rain has kept the stink bugs at bay.   One York County apple grower referred to her crop as “tremendous”.

Adjoining Adams County is the number one fruit producing county in the state.  Experts fear that climate change could limit apple production to the northern counties of Pennsylvania by mid-century.

Stink Bug News

There’s a new sheriff in town for stink bugs. The EPA is temporarily permitting orchards to use the pesticide dinotefuran. Dinotefuran is normally used on leafy plants but the EPA is allowing orchards to use this weapon to combat stink bugs in PA, MD and NJ. The pesky bugs have been responsible for destroying as much as 40% of some orchards crop!

Back at the ranch, the USDA is working away on a biological weapon but that is at least a year away from being ready. This temporary pesticide exemption is to help farmers combat the voracious stink bugs until the biological weapon can be deployed.

For more information on dinotefuran, click here:
http://www.mitsuichemicals.com/dinotefuran.htm